My boyfriend and I are seriously considering moving from New Mexico to Pittsburgh for me to attend grad school. My boyfriend and I enjoy fishing and have especially gotten into fly fishing within the past year. He really wants to move somewhere where he can get off work and drive about an hour and be able to fly fish. We'd be willing to drive up to four hours for weekend camping/fishing trips.

In New Mexico, we don't have that many options for fly fishing, but our favorite (the San Juan river) is pretty amazing. I guess I'm looking for reassurance that there is good fly fishing in PA, and perhaps some close to Pittsburgh. Also, what is the season like? Can you still fly fish during the late fall, winter, or early spring? Any other info is much appreciated!

agent229 - There is excellent fly fishing for trout in PA although not that close to the 'burgh. You said you'd be willing to drive up to four hours for weekend trips. In about two to three hours you can be on some of PA's best waters like the Little Juniata, Spring Creek and Penns Creek. Also, about a three hour drive will get you to the Cumberland Valley spring creeks like the Letort. Lot of history on these streams but they aren't easy to fish. I think in about four hours time you can also get into the North Central mountains which offer lots of fishing opportunities.

Also not from from Pittsburgh there's fishing in the Laurel Highlands and if you like a big brawling, often frustrating river there's the Youghiogheny.

You have warm water fishing opportunities nearby and are a couple hours away from Lake Erie and it's tributary streams which have steelhead in the fall and winter. Bottom line - lots of options but not right down the street from Pittsburgh.

Where are you thinking about grad school? My daughter is an undergrad at Pitt. She loves it there. Pittsburgh is a great city.

Posted on: 2014/3/7 9:11

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"You might be a big fish, in a little pond. Doesn't mean you've won, cause a long may come, a bigger one."

NM is one of the few states I haven't been too, but there is trout fishing there in the mountains. Some Native American tribes control access on some of the streams, but from what I know it's not tough to get, but don't break the law, because Native Americans are a nation and can and will arrest you.You'll find cutthroats mostly, they are the native trout, rainbows and brown are also in a few tail waters. I'd start searching for NM fisheries dept.The 2 biggest cities are Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Good luck!

Posted on: 2014/3/7 9:51

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The object of a resource is to use and reuse a resource, not to use it up, have we learned nothing in over 125 years of stocking?

Pittsburgh is a great city with tons to offer, but it is not exactly trout town USA. There are opportunities for trout fishing within an hour or so of city though, but none likely comparable to the San Juan.

If you are willing to hit the road for a couple hours, you can easily be on some very good water. I've been living in the city for about 6 years and spend many weekends camping and fishing north of Pittsburgh and in Central PA. It's not a terrible trade-off, having the amenities and culture of a big city available, and in your case proximity to school, with the ability to get away to the " Pa wilds" on the weekends.

I don't recommend it either. I spent some time in the badlands of nm outside the west texas town of el paso (didn't fall in love with a mexican girl )

Anyhow it was about a 6 hour drive from where I was to fish the San Juan, so I got to do it a few times. Back to the OP, while the San Juan is world class, you'll be happy to know that you'll find several world class rivers within 4 hours of Pittsburgh.

Close to an hour is the mighty Youghiogheny river. The river in the trout stretches is very remote if you are willing to travel by watercraft or foot. While it doesn't offer tremendous hatches, caddis activity can be heavy and it is amazing streamer water. The lower sections are smallmouth heaven.

Penns creek is about 3 hours from Pitt, is world class and a total bug factory. Here is where you get into those dream match the hatch scenarios with the potential to catch huge trout on huge dry flies. People come from all over the world to fish the eastern green drake hatch that occurs in early may to late june. There is some thing to be said about catching trout on size 8 dry flies…

My boyfriend and I are seriously considering moving from New Mexico to Pittsburgh for me to attend grad school. My boyfriend and I enjoy fishing and have especially gotten into fly fishing within the past year. He really wants to move somewhere where he can get off work and drive about an hour and be able to fly fish. We'd be willing to drive up to four hours for weekend camping/fishing trips.

In New Mexico, we don't have that many options for fly fishing, but our favorite (the San Juan river) is pretty amazing. I guess I'm looking for reassurance that there is good fly fishing in PA, and perhaps some close to Pittsburgh. Also, what is the season like? Can you still fly fish during the late fall, winter, or early spring? Any other info is much appreciated!

Thanks so much!

Pennsylvania has high quality trout fisheries. You have some options within an hour of Pittsburgh, although good trout streams in that range are somewhat limited. Within two hours, you can be on the Erie tributaries for steelhead and lake-run brown trout, an artificial but very fun fishery. For your weekend trips, with three to four hours, you are easily within striking distance of the Allegheny National Forest, all the streams around State College, the Cumberland Valley limestoners and lots of stuff in between.

If you are into warm-water fishing on the fly, then you have many more options around Pittsburgh.

I would consider your fishing options line item checked off for Pennsylvania.

Thank you all so much. I'm considering graduate school at Carnegie Mellon, which I just visited and like a lot. I will use this as a reference later if we do end up here and as evidence to convince the boyfriend that he won't just waste away in a city away from all the fish

Welcome Agent. As you can see, we're a friendly crew around here. If you do wind up coming to Pittsburgh, keep hanging out here on Paflyfish and you'll enjoy learning from your new fishing buddies here. We'll take you under our wing and keep you informed. If you haven't already done so, take some time to read thru the thousands of topics posted here and you can really learn a lot about what is happening here in PA with respect to places to fish, issues and controversies, hatches, etc. Enjoy, and good luck with your studies.

We've just gone through one of the worst winters that I can remember in quite a while. And I haven't fished for over 4 months. But when I do finally string a rod again - and I plan on doing so shortly - it will be very sweet for sure. And I plan on making up for lost timeThat said, we've also had many relatively mild winters lately too. The winter of 2011/2012 was very easy going, and there were opportunities to fish just about that whole year.

As for driving times to fish - the best streams are about 2 - 3 hours away from the burgh. I usually just plan on hitting those places during my 2 days off from work, and staying over a night or two. And I've gotten quite used to making those kind of trips for quality fishing.

And there are some pretty good fishing opportunities closer. There is even a small stream that holds a pretty decent wild trout population 40 minutes from my door.

So yeah - even though I wish it was closer to some limestone streams, pittsburgh is still a nice place to live IMO.